There's still time to grab this month's (October) Games with Gold title The Walking Dead: Complete First Season and I can certainly recommend if you have not had chance to play this game before that you download it the moment you finish reading this!
Ironically I've sort of played the opening sequences of this game many a times before, as its been readily available on a range of different platforms in the past, thus I've played it on the PS3 and Android devices.
However I have never gotten far into the first episode and I'm not sure the reasons why. Either way I was really pleased to get a second chance to experience this amazing game properly and one that I could have missed out on without the Games with Gold Program.
Story Driven Gameplay
Similar in some ways to the TV Series (which like the game is based on the comics) The Walking Dead: Complete First Season is story driven and the primary focus is on the characters that you will meet throughout the 5 Chapters (plus there is a bonus chapter called The 400 Days DLC).
The story is also graphically enhanced via its comic book style presentation and while the visuals sometimes stutter in places (with character movement) the overall effect most certainly captures the abandoned streets and Zombie infested wasteland perfectly.
Characters
You control the primary character called Lee, a convicted Murderer on his way to prison when suddenly the cop car he is travelling in crashes as it runs down a mysterious character. Without giving too much away you get a chance of redemption and your job is to survive/protect the characters you meet in the game (more specifically a young girl called Clementine), but it's the series of choices that you are forced to make that sets this game apart from the standard Q & A adventures.
Who do you choose to live or die? It's up to you and this brings to the surface real life emotions as you battle to come to terms with your choices (you can really get attached to the characters).
Your choices also have a dynamic affect on the way the game is played out, so you do have a touch of replay value here. It's also cool to see a table of results at the end of each chapter which compares your responses to other players in the community.
Chapters are out of this world!
There are some pretty amazing chapters to work your way through and I liked that at the start/end of each chapter you get a TV style presentation; one that recaps the previous or future events.
Similar to most adventure games you can control Lee's movement to navigate around the pre-set area. This is done via a series of left and right thumb stick movements, with the latter being the primary method of viewing/grabbing objects (additionally you get involved with some combat stages which are great) or interacting with characters.
Each character can remember certain things you say and this is indicated via the top of the screen; so unlike random responses to questions you really need to think about your choices, but to spice things up there is a time limit in which you have to choose your answer.
You can die in this game, but you simply get to return to your previous checkpoint. Mind you to re-iterate it's the choices that you make in the game that really governs the way you play and this makes for one of the most gripping games I've experienced so far - nothing is predictable as you think, even with the Zombies!
It's gruesome at times and nothing is held back (though due to the style of the graphics the brutality is somewhat dampened), but even so, don't let this put you off from grabbing one of the best Games with Gold titles to be released on the platform so far!